The Girl in Red
by MoneButterfly
Summary: He had always loved her in red. - AU story about Hotch, Emily, Jack and their daughter Rebecca. Main focus will be on Hotch and Rebecca.
1. Minus One

The Girl In Red

* * *

The first time he saw her she was wearing red. It was back in the day when he worked for her mother. He had been in the study working when he caught sight of something red outside. He walked from the desk to the window and looked out. There he saw her. She was sitting in the grass reading a very thick and old book. Even from where he was standing he was able to see how yellow the pages were. His eyes moved for the book to her. She was so focused on her book that she did not even notice that he was looking at her, and she looked so beautiful as she sat there in the sun.

Long, dark locks of hair hung around her face in big curls. Small pieces of it kept falling in front of her eyes and she would ever so often move them behind her ears, only for them to fall back down again.

She wore a dress – a red summer dress. The red color was perfect for her and he would never be able to look at her again and not picture her sitting in the grass bathed in sun wearing that red dress.

It had now been so many years since he saw her for the first time and as he looks out his office window, he once again sees her in red. Today she is wearing a simple button down red shirt. A shirt that is the same red color as her dress had been. But unlike the first time he had watched her, this time she notices him looking at her. She lifts her head and smiles at him as she closes the case file she had been reading in and makes her way to his office.

"Are you ready to go?" she asks with a smile leaning against the doorframe.

"I still have a lot of work to do. Sorry."

Her expression saddens and she walks to his desk, sitting down in the chair across from him. "It can't wait for tomorrow?"

He knows that she knows that it could not wait, but the hope and optimism in her voice makes him smile. It is one of the reasons why he loves her so much.

"I have something really important to tell you."

"Then tell it to me now."

"No, I will just wait till you get home."

"Are you sure?"

She nods her head and gets up. "Yeah I'm sure. I will see you at home."

"Okay," he says smiling at her.

She walks to the door, but then she turns back to him with a happy sigh. And as she lays her hand on her stomach she says, "I hope the baby will have dimples as cute as yours."

For a moment he just sits there by his desk looking at her, but then he rises from the chair and without a word he walks over to her and kisses her.

She laughs against his lips. "I guess you are just as happy about this as I am."

"Happy is not even a strong enough word to describe how I'm feeling right now."

She tilts her head back and laughs with everything she is worth.

He loves her laughter. He loves her. And he loves the family that they are going to be – him, her, Jack and the baby.

"I love you, Emily."

"I love you, Aaron."

He kisses her again and he can feel the happiness coming from both of them.


	2. Zero

The girl in red

* * *

He follows the low sound of her voice to the nursery. It wasn't the first time he had heard her sing. She often sung along with the radio in the car when it was just the two of them or them and Jack. When she was in the shower he would also be able to hear her sing songs she knew by heart, and when she was in a particularly good mood she would sing while they cooked dinner together. Jack loved it when she sang and he had heard them sing to the baby before she'd been born. He would lay his hands on her rounded stomach and feel the movement of his baby sister as they happily sang 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'.

He leans against the doorframe to the nursery and watches her affectionately as she walks around the room with their daughter lying in her arms as she sings to her. Dark blue eyes are slowly beginning to droop as she listens to the smoothing sound of her mother's voice.

Rebecca is only four weeks old and everything about her is so tiny – tiny hands, tiny feet. He cannot remember Jack every being this tiny, but he must have been at some point. Now Jack just seems so big. He is in the second grade and will be seven soon. Time flies by so quickly it is scary.

_"In the dark blue sky so deep_  
_Through my curtains often peep._  
_For you never close your eyes_  
_Till the morning sun does rise._  
_Twinkle, twinkle, little star_  
_How I wonder what you are._

_Twinkle, twinkle, little star_  
_How I wonder what you are."_

As she finishes the song her voice trails off to just a hum and Rebecca's eyes slide shut. Even though the baby is now asleep again she doesn't lay her back in her crib, instead, she sits down in the rocking chair and continues to hum.

"You should've woken me up," he whispers, not wanting to wake the sleeping child or startle her. He walks into the room and kisses her on the head, before crouching down beside the rocking chair. A smile spreads across his face as he looks at his sleeping daughter. She looks so peaceful. "How long have you been up?"

"Not long."

"You really should have woken me. It was my turn to get her."

"I know," she says with a smile, "but you looked tired so I thought I would just let you sleep." Her gaze moves from the baby in her arms to him. "I can't get over just how perfect she is."

"She gets that from her mom."

He smiles and she moves one hand from around the baby to touch his face. She lets the hand run over his check slowly, but stops at his dimple. "I'm sorry to say this honey, but I think Becky has sweeter dimples than you," she says with a whisper and laughs.

"I think I can live with that." He moves her hand from his cheek and kisses it. "Come on my love, you need to get some sleep, too."

She sighs and carefully gets to her feet.

She lays their daughter in the crib and covers her with the small red baby blanket.

He stands behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. She covers his big hands with her own smaller ones as he kisses the side of her neck, slowly inhaling the scent of her.

She sighs happily and leans back against his chest. "I don't think I will ever get tired of watching her sleep."

"I know that you mean." He kisses her neck again. "We should get back to bed."

She nods and follows him out the door, but casts one last look over her shoulder at their sleeping daughter before closing the door half way and walking back to their own room.


	3. One

The Girl in Red

* * *

Hotch looks at Rebecca in amazement as she walks across the living room on her own for the first time. Her steps are slow and her legs are shaking as she makes her way towards Jack. He laughs and cheers for her. It makes her giggle and she stretches her small arms out for him. But before she reaches him her legs give out under her and she falls to her bottom. Jack laughs, but when Rebecca starts crying he stops.

"Oh Becky! Up again." He helps her to her feet and she walks the three steps into his open arms. Jack hugs her and falls backward to the floor with Rebecca in his arms. They both laugh as they roll around on the floor.

There is a big flash and then Hotch hears Emily's laugher behind him. "Are our children the cutest or what?" She leans over the chair he is sitting in to show him the picture on the camera screen.

He takes the camera from her hands to look at the picture more closely. The kids really are cute as they lay together on the floor. Jack is looking at the camera, but Rebecca is just looking at Jack. They are both smiling big. They have the same smile and the same nose. Rebecca's eye color has changed a lot since she was born. Her eyes are no longer dark blue. They are now about the same brown color as his, but it seems like they are getting darker and darker with everyday that goes by. Soon they will be just as dark as her mother's.

He loves her dark, dark brown eyes.

"Can I see the picture too, mom?"

He can see the surprise on her face. Jack has only called her mom or mommy a couple of times before. It had started after Rebecca had learned to say it. Jack had helped her learn it.

"Can I see it?"

She grabs the camera from his hands and walks over to Jack. She sits down beside him and holds the camera so he can see the picture. "Can we put the picture into the computer and then print it out for me, so I can have it in my room?" he asks and looks up at her.

She smiles at him. "Of course we can."

"Look Becky," Jack says and points to the camera screen. She does not react to what he is saying she just gets up on her small legs and walks away.

"And you were afraid that she was never going to walk."

She shrugs her shoulders. "I was not afraid, I was just concerned."

Rebecca is now fourteen months old, but the steps she is taking now are not her first ones. When she was ten months old she took her first couple of steps, but then she just stopped. She stopped walking and went back to crawling. And every time they had tried to lift Rebecca to her feet to get her to walk, she would just sit back down. But then one day about two weeks ago Jack had called for her and she had just got up and walked to him. That day she had decided that now, now was the time for her to start walking and then she did it. Now she was ready.

Hotch looks at Rebecca as she slowly walks towards her yellow teddy bear that is lying on the floor. But just before she reaches it Jack bends down and takes it.

"Be nice to your sister," she says as she ruffles Jack's hair and Rebecca starts to cry. She wants her teddy bear. Jack places it on her head and when it falls down to the floor she starts to laugh. He does it again and again and Rebecca laughs even harder every time.

Emily sits down in Hotch's lap and fishes the camera out of the pocket in the red hoodie she is wearing and takes a couple more pictures of the kids.

She leaves the camera in her lap and lays her head on his shoulder. She sighs deeply. "I love it when they are this happy."

"I love it when we are all this happy," he says and wraps his arms around her and kisses her on top of her head. "It's these happy moments we will want to remember forever. They may seem small, but they are happy moments."

She smiles and takes the camera from her lap. She then turns her head towards him and presses her lips against his. While their lips are together and they both are smiling she takes the picture. She wants to remember being this happy forever.


	4. Two

The Girl in Red

* * *

He is in the middle of a nice dream when he feels someone shaking him and saying his name. He opens his eyes slowly and sees her standing over him. For a moment he starts to panic thinking something must be wrong with one of the children since she is waking him up in the middle of the night.

"Emily, what's wrong?" He sits up quickly and looks at her worried.

She smiles, "Nothing is wrong."

"Then way did you wake me?"

She grabs his hand and he follows her to the window. The first thing he notices is that the sun is about to rise, so it is not actually in the middle of the night, more like 6:30 in the morning, but then he sees that the garden is covered in snow. That is why she woke him up. The first snow is falling outside.

She turns to him and kisses him quickly on the mouth. "Let's got wake the kids," she says happily. "Then we can go outside and play in the snow." She is 42 years old, but at that moment she looks like a little kid as she stands there before him with the hope glowing in her eyes, wanting him to say that he likes her idea.

He smiles at her and nods. "I think that sounds like the perfect thing to do."

They both get dressed and then go to wake up the children. She goes to Rebecca's room and he goes to Jack's.

Jack is lying in the bed on his stomach. The duvet is turned the wrong way and half of it is lying on the floor. He kneels down by the front of the bed and strokes Jack's back as he says, "Buddy, you need to wake up now."

He stretches and yawns. "Is it time for school?"

"Not yet, but we have a surprise for you." They both turn their heads towards the voice. Emily is standing in the doorway with a sleepy looking Rebecca on her hip. "It's snowing," she says with a smile.

Jack quickly crawls out of bed and runs to the window. He pulls the curtains apart and looks outside. "It really is snowing!" He jumps up and down happily. It makes Rebecca laugh and all of the sudden she does not seem so tired anymore.

"Go put on your snowsuit," Hotch says.

Jack looks surprised at him. "I don't have to get dressed first?"

He shakes his head and Jack runs out the room smiling. The others quickly follow after him into the hall where is already putting on his green snowsuit.

Emily sits Rebecca on the floor and reaches for her small red snowsuit on the low hanger. She takes it down and then kneels by her so she can dress her, but Rebecca does not agree. She tries to get her legs in the snowsuit, but Rebecca crawls ways quickly and then gets up and runs out of the hallway to the living room.

She sighs. "Hotch, can you please grab Becky and bring her back here."

He peaks his head out for the kitchen. "Did she run away?"

"First she crawled and then she ran."

"She ran away from you?" he asks with a smile.

She rolls her eyes at him. "Yes she did, can you now please go get her so we can go outside?"

"Of course sweetheart." He walks over to her and leans down to give her a kiss and a cup of coffee. She accepts both with a big smile. Then he walks off again and 30 seconds later he comes back with Rebecca dangling under his right arm while he tickles her. She is laughing so hard tears are rolling down her cheeks. "Will you ever run away from mommy again?" he asks.

"Me not run away anymore," she laughs.

"Good girl."

He puts her down on the floor and she runs to her red snowsuit. "Mommy, you help me?" Rebecca asks with a sweet smile.

She grabs the snowsuit and lays it on her lap; she then takes Rebecca and puts her on top of it. She quickly dresses her and then helps her put on boots, hat, scarf and mittens. Now she is all ready. So is Jack. He is sitting patiently by the door waiting for the others without complaining.

She puts on her boots and coat and then grabs Jack and Rebecca's hands and walks out the front door with them. Jack stops her. "Where is dad?"

"I'm right here, Buddy," he says and locks the door. Jack smiles now that he knows where everyone is. For an 8 year-old boy he is very protective of his family. It started after Haley was murdered. He got terrified of losing another member of his family, but who can blame him? Jack lets go of her hand and runs out in the snow. Rebecca does the same and runs after her brother, but she does not get far before she slips in the snow and falls. Rebecca cries. Jack laughs. He walks over to her and lies down in the snow beside her.

They sit down on the front steps watching their children make snow angels. Hotch wraps his arm around Emily waist and pulls her close. "This was a really good idea," he says and kisses her cheek. She smiles and turns her head so he can give her a proper kiss. He does, but it suddenly ends when he is hit with a snowball in the head. He looks at Jack, but he is playing with Rebecca and his attention is only on her.

Then he looks at her. She has covered her mouth with both her hands in attempt to keep herself from laughing, but she is not doing a very good job. She removes her hands and laughs out loud as she looks up at him through her bangs. There is something in his eyes and she knows something is going to happen.

Even though she had seen it coming, she still lets out a startled scream when he pushes her to the snow covered ground. He leans over her and lets a handful of snow fall down in her face. She shakes her head to get it off and it lands in her hair.

He looks down at her. "You are so beautiful."

She giggles. "I have snow everywhere."

"It makes you look like an angel." He leans down and kisses her passionately. She closes her eyes and enjoys the feeling of his tongue moving with hers. The kiss ends way too soon according to her, but not to the children.

"Ewww!" Rebecca squeals.

"Don't do that when we are around!" Jack says making a face.

"Why, not?" she asks looking at Jack. "It's only a kiss."

"A kiss with tongue!"

They laugh as they pull apart and walk over to the kids. Emily sits down in the snow, while Hotch grabs Rebecca throws her in the air. Rebecca laughs at the top of her voice as he catches her again. Jack sits down between her legs and leans his back against her chest. "Dad used to do that with me too, all the time when I was little." He sighs sadly.

"What's wrong, sweetie?"

"Thinking about me being little also made me think about my mom." She does not know what to say. Jack almost never talks to her about Haley. "Most of what I remember about her is what daddy has told me." He turns to look at her. "Is that normal? That I don't remember?"

She nods. "You were very young."

He looks away and leans his back against her again. Then he smiles. "I'm glad you're my mom now."

Emily smiles and kisses him on the cheek. "Me too."


	5. Three

The Girl in Red

* * *

He walks down the aisle in search for the children's favorite cereal. He can not quite remember which one it is, because it changes so often. One day Jack likes one brand and the next he does not. It's the same with Rebecca. Yesterday the only thing she would eat was oatmeal and this morning she almost threw up when he had made her eat it.

So which one should he get?

He can hear them on the other side of the aisle. "Hey Jack, what can of cereal do you want for breakfast?" he asks, but he does not get an answer and just as he is about to ask again Rebecca comes running towards him.

"Daddy, Jack is being mean to me," she says and hugs his legs.

"What mean things are he doing to you?" he strokes her hair.

"He says I'm a baby and can't look at school things with him and mommy." Rebecca looks up at him. "I'm a not a baby. I'm 3 and a half."

He kneels down in front of her. "Yes I know. You are a big girl." He smiles. "So why don't you go over there and look at the toys while I find some breakfast?"

She looks in the direction he is pointing and then back at him. "Could I maybe get a toy?" Rebecca asks sweetly.

"We will see," he says and kisses her on the nose before she runs off.

He gets up and turns back to the shelves with cereal boxes again. He sighs and then just grabs a box he thinks the children will like and that does not contain too much sugar.

He looks to his left and sees Rebecca. Her hair is quite long for a girl her age. Right now it is up in a ponytail so it will not hang down in her face. There is a red bow tied around it. It's the same red color as her dress. A dress he actually thinks is a bit too formal to wear for a shopping trip, but Rebecca loves it and she looks adorable in it. She looks like her mom.

In her hands, Rebecca is holding a box with a Barbie doll. He knows that she will be asking him if she can have it and even though he wants to say no, he knows that he will not. He will say yes just to see her smile.

He shakes his head and walks further down the aisle towards the bread and away from Rebecca. He grabs a rye bread and a box of biscuits. For a moment he wonders if there is anything else they need from this aisle, but he cannot think of anything, so he turns back to the toys aisle and Rebecca.

His heart stops. Rebecca is no longer standing by the row of Barbie dolls. He quickly walks closer hoping she is just standing on the other side of the aisle looking at the other toys, but she is not there either. He calls her name over and over and every time it is filled with more panic.

"Aaron, what's going on?" Emily asks scared and running towards him with Jack right behind her.

"She is gone. I can't find her!"

"What?" Tears are filling up in her eyes now.

"She was right here looking at the Barbie dolls and then I turned to grab some things, and when I turned back she was gone."

"But she can't be gone. She has to be her somewhere," Jack says.

He takes a deep breath and looks up at Emily. "Okay, you and Jack keep looking for her while I find someone who works here and tell them to close down the store till we find her."

She wipes the tears from her cheeks and nods, but just as they are about to go their separate ways they hear the speaker being turned on and someone says. "Attention all shoppers, we have a young girl here, who is looking for her parents. Her name is Rebecca Jennifer Hotch-"

"No, you are saying it wrong," a little voice says. "It's Penefer."

"Penefer? What kind of name is that?"

"My name!"

They hear people around them laugh. Jack does the same. "That is definitely my sister."

Emily grabs Jack's hand and all three of them quickly walk to the reception. Rebecca is sitting on the counter happily eating a Kit Kat like nothing is wrong.

Hotch picks her up and hugs her tight. He does not want to ever let go of his daughter again. For a moment he thought that he had lost her forever. "You are crushing me, daddy," Rebecca says wrenching in his tight grip. He sits her back down on the counter and asks, "Why did you leave the aisle with the toys?"

"I didn't," Rebecca says and takes a bite of her Kit Kat.

"But then how did you end up here?"

"I couldn't find mommy. So I call 'mommy, mommy, mommy where are you?' and then a lady found me. She ask if I could find my mommy and I couldn't. So we walk here and the man talked on the phone-thingy. He said my name wrong."

Jack laughs. "Yeah, we heard that."

"What will Aunt Penny and Aunt Jenny say when they hear that?" Rebecca asks and eats the last piece of chocolate.

"I think they will live," Emily says and takes a napkin for her pocket and wipes chocolate off of Rebecca's mouth. "And listen to me, honey. You can never ever walk off with a stranger. If you couldn't find me, then you should have asked daddy to help you find me, okay?"

Rebecca nods. "Okay mommy."

She helps Rebecca down the counter and says. "Say thank you to the nice man for the Kit Kat."

"Thank you," Rebecca says and they walk away, but they do not get far before she stops them. "Mommy," she tucks her right pants leg so she bends forward and Rebecca whispers in her ear, "The man wasn't very nice. He said my name was weird."

She smiles. "Aaron, why don't you and Jack get the rest of the things we need, while I talk with Becky for a second?"

He gives her an understanding smile and then he and Jack left, leaving the two of them alone in the middle of the fruit aisle. She crouches down in front of Rebecca and strokes her cheek. "Your name is a very special name. You know that right?"

Rebecca nods. "You and daddy made it, so I could have both Aunt Penny and Aunt Jenny's names."

"That's right. Daddy and I wanted you to have their names, but calling you Rebecca Penelope Jennifer Hotchner was going to be way too long. So we came up with Penefer."

"But the man said it was weird," Rebecca says sadly.

She touches Rebecca's cheeks and let's her thumbs run under her eyes wiping the tears away. "Do you like your middle name?"

"Mmhmm," Rebecca says with a sniffle.

"As long as you like your name, then it doesn't matter what the man thinks, okay sweetie?" she asks and pulls Rebecca into a hug kissing her on the head.

"Okay mommy."


	6. Four

The Girl in Red

* * *

Emily sits beside Rebecca in the bed with a book in her hands. Rebecca is snuggled up against her as she listens to the smoothing sound of her mother's voice. She is reading Cinderella. It is not the Disney version, but the version written down by the Brothers Grimm. They both like the Grimm's story better, so that is the one she reads for Rebecca every night. And yes, it was the same story ever night.

"As they passed by the hazel-tree, the two white doves cried - turn and peep, turn and peep, no blood is in the shoe, the shoe is not too small for her, the true bride rides with you, and when they had cried that, the two came flying down and placed themselves on Cinderella's shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and remained sitting there. And Cinderella and the prince got married and they lived happily ever after." She closes the book and kisses Rebecca on the head. She never reads the last part of the story where the pigeons peck out the stepmother and stepsisters eyes. _'It's too violent for a four year-old,_' she thinks.

"It's time for bed now, sweetie," she says and lays the book on the bedside table and gets up.

"No, wait mommy!" Rebecca says as she takes a hold of her shirt sleeve to keep Emily from walking away. "Tell me another story."

She sighs and smiles, "It's too late for another story, Becky."

"Please Mommy."

She sits back down on the bed. "What story do you want me to tell you? And I'm not reading Cinderella again."

Rebecca laughs. "Not Cinderella this time. I want you to tell me about you and Daddy's wedding."

She looks surprised at her. "Our wedding?"

"Yes. I have only ever seen the pictures. I want to hear about it too. Was it magical? Was it like the ones you see in the movies? Was it like Cinderella's?"

Emily lays a hand over Rebecca's mouth to get her to stop talking. "If you promise to lie down and close your eyes, then I will tell you all about it." Rebecca quickly does as she is told and pulls the duvet up under her chin and tightly closes her eyes. "What do you want me to tell you about it?"

Rebecca smiles. "Everything!"

"Okay. Well, Friday night Jack's Aunt Jessie came and picked him up, because she was going to babysit him and get him ready for the next day, and because it brings bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding in her wedding dress, then your daddy went to stay with Dave for the night. Then the next morning my helpers came to help me get ready for my big day just like in fairytales," she says with a smile. "They had already fixed their hair and make-up and only needed to put on their red bridesmaid dress. So it was just me that needed to get set."

Rebecca opens her eyes. "What about Ally? Was she there?"

She nods. Yes Ally, a.k.a. Ashley Seaver – the cadet that had joined their team a long time ago, had also been there. She had told Rebecca many times about how Ashley had joined the team a couple of months after JJ had left and none of them had been very welcoming towards her at first, because they had missed JJ so much and therefore did not want to have someone else there on their team to fill her spot, but after some time they had of course warmed up to her and she became the one they felt the need to protect. The first time Rebecca heard the story she had been horrified. She could not understand why anyone would not like her favorite person in the world, because that was what Ashley had become to Rebecca – her favorite person in the whole world – and no one really knew why, she just was. "Of course she was there."

"Good! And they helped you get ready?"

Emily nods. "First Ashley did my make-up while Penelope did my nails and when they were done JJ fixed my hair."

"And then you put on your dress and you looked all pretty?"

She laughs. "Yes I did, but you have already seen the picture so you know that." She pinches Rebecca's nose. "Now close your eyes again or I won't tell you anymore."

"Kay mommy," Rebecca laughs and covers her nose with her hands. "Tell me more."

"First you close your eyes."

Rebecca closes her eyes and then she asks, "Did you wear something old? And something new? And some-"

She lays her hand over Rebecca's mouth once again to stop her rambling. "Stop talking," she says with a light laugher and Rebecca giggles. "Yes I wore something old, new, borrowed and blue. The old thing was my bracelet. Your Grandma gave it to me and it was the same bracelet that she wore at her and Grandpa's wedding and her mother also wore it at her wedding, so it was really old, but also really pretty." She took a deep breath before going on. "The new thing was my dress and the borrowed thing was the small red butterfly hairclips that JJ had put in my hair. It looked really good and matched my dress perfectly."

Rebecca opens her eyes a little and looks up at her. "Who's was the butterflies really?" she asks.

"Who do you know that really loves butterflies?"

"Aunt Jenny!" Rebecca says with a laugh and closes her eyes again.

"That's right," she says and strokes Rebecca's cheek. "I borrowed them from her. And do you know what was blue?" Rebecca takes a moment to think, but then she shakes her head. "The nail polish on my toes."

"Really?" Rebecca asks surprised.

"Yes really. But no one could see it, because my shoes covered my toes. I wanted to skip the 'something blue' because it wouldn't match everything else, but the others wouldn't let me, so Penelope painted my toes nails blue."

Rebecca giggles. "Can I have my toe nails painted blue too?"

"At your wedding or tomorrow?" she asks.

"Tomorrow of course, but can I?"

"I'm sure we can figure something out."

"Yaaay!" Rebecca squeals. "Now go on, Mommy."

"Okay I will if you don't have any more questions for me."

Rebecca thinks, but then says, "Not right now."

She smiles. "Well, after we were all ready, a car came, picked us up and drove us to the church. The bells started ringing as the car pulled up in front of the church and Grandpa stood on the front step waiting for us. When the car stopped, he opened the door and helped me out of the car. JJ held up the back of my dress so it wouldn't touch the ground and get dirty. Then when we got into the front room for the church we lined up. I was so nervous as I stood there waiting for the music to start playing and for the doors to open. I kept straightening out invisible wrinkles on my dress and fiddling with the leaves in my bouquet." She smiles at the memory. "But then the music started and a moment later, the doors opened. Everyone in the church got up and we started walking in – first Ashley, then Penelope, then JJ and then me and Grandpa. But do know what? Even though there were a lot of people in the church I didn't notice them, because I was too busy looking at your Daddy. He stood by the altar with the biggest smile on his face that I have ever seen him smile," she says with a small laugh.

Rebecca opens her eyes and sighs. "Oh, I wish I could have been there too."

She leans down and hugs her. "You want to know something, Becky?" Rebecca nods. "I said that at that moment I saw the biggest smile on your Daddy's face, right. Well, when you were born he smiled an even bigger smile."

Rebecca laughs and says, "That's because he was happy I was born, because he loves me."

"That's right," she says and looks down at Rebecca. "You may look a lot like me, but there is also so much of your father in you." She smiles and is just about to get up from the bed, when Rebecca asks, "Do you love me too, mommy?"

"Silly girl," Emily says and tickles her.

"Mommy!" Rebecca is convulsing with laughter. "Stop tickling me!"

She stops the tickling and kisses her on the nose. "I love you more than anything in the world."

Rebecca smiles. "Goodnight Mommy."

"Goodnight sweetie." Emily kisses her on the head and then gets up from the bed and walks to the door where she switches off the light. And just as she is about to close the door she hears Rebecca mumble, "I hope my wedding will be just as magical as Mommy's."

* * *

Emily's hair:  
http: / www . weddingcorners . net / wp-content / uploads / 2009 / 08 / wedding-hair-style . gif  
Small red butterflies instead of the white flowers.

Emily's wedding dress:  
http: / www . helenebridal . com / showprodpic . asp ? prodno = WD0622 & prodid = 622

Emily's wedding bouquet:  
http: / www . weddingdressgown . org / wp-content / uploads / 2010 / 11/ red-wedding-flowers1 . jpg


	7. Five

The Girl in Red

* * *

Hotch is doing paper work in their home office even though it's Sunday morning. He likes to do it now, because then he will be able to be home earlier the other days. He tries to only work late on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because then the children are not home either. They both have practice on those nights. Jack has baseball and Rebecca has ballet, and Sunday is also his day to be up early with Rebecca. She usually wakes up around six or seven and then they will eat breakfast together before going their separate ways – him to the office to work and Rebecca to the living room to watching some morning TV.

He can hear her laughing in the other room and he cannot help but smile. He is guessing that she once again is watching 'Phineas and Ferb'. It is her favorite TV-show and she will watch the episodes over and over again without getting bored. She also loves that Phineas and Ferb's best friend has the same name as her best friend, namely Isabella, who is JJ and Will's daughter. She is a year younger than Rebecca, but they are still best friends and play together as often as possible.

Rebecca laughs highly and he can just picture how she is leaning forward hugging her stomach as she laughs. He considers if he should just forget about the rest of the files and sit with Rebecca as she watches TV, so he can watch her laugh and smile, but decides not to. He needs to get this work done today if he wants to be home before dinner tomorrow.

He sits with his head buried in files for a long time and everything has become quiet. Rebecca has turn off the TV and is probably in her room now playing with her doll house, but all of the sudden the silent is broken by the high notes of the piano and now music is filling the house. He closes the case file he is working on and walks out of the office and into the living room where the grand piano stands in the corner. It was a wedding present from Emily's parents. It had actually belonged to her parents for many years and she had played on it all the time as a kid. She loved that piano and when her mother had told them that they were giving it to them for their wedding, she had cried. Just after they had gotten the piano home she had played all the time, both alone and for him and Jack. She had also played a lot when she had been pregnant and for Rebecca right after she had been born, but then she had returned back to work and there had not really been time for her to play.

So hearing the music now and seeing her sit by the piano with Rebecca cuddled up next to her makes him realize how much he has missed it when she filled the house with music.

He watches her play for some time, but then she stops and moves Rebecca right hand to the keys and together their hands moves creating the melody of 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'. The song finishes and Rebecca laughs. "I did good didn't I daddy?" she says turning towards him.

He did not even know that Rebecca had noticed him there. "You did really well, Becky," he says and walks up to them. Rebecca tries to play the song again and does not notice her parents when they kiss. She is five and still thinks kissing is disgusting. Her focus is fully on the playing so they kiss again, but this time she sees them. "Kissing is gross," she says.

"But your daddy is my husband, so isn't it okay for me to kiss him?" Emily asks and scoops Rebecca into her lap and hugs her.

Rebecca nods and then with a dead serious look on her face and she says "Boys are like spiders – creepy and gross. At least you can squish a spider. Not a boy though. I've tried."

They laugh and she hugs Rebecca again.

"Does that mean that you think I'm creepy and gross too?" Jack asks leaning against the doorway.

Rebecca shakes her head runs over to him. "Come here," she says and grabs his hand. "Come and hear what mommy has taught me to play." They walk over to the piano and Rebecca sits down on the two seated piano stool and like before she lets her mother take her hand so she can move it to the right keys. When she finish she happily turns to him and says, "I'm good, aren't I?"

"You are really good," Jack says smiling. "You know, mom also taught me how to play the piano when I was little."

"You did mommy?"

"Yes I did," she says and smiles, but not only because of the adorable little girl in the red nightgown that sits beside her, but because of how easily the term mom slides of Jack's lips now. She still remembers that happy feeling she would get inside when he first started calling her mom.

"Can I have your seat?" Jack asks Emily. She nods and then both parents move to stand a few feet away from them. Jack sits down next to Rebecca and starts to play. She looks at him in amazement as his fingers move over the keys quickly. Rebecca closes her eyes and rocks slowly from side to side enjoying the beautiful music.

They stood looking at both their children with smiles on their faces. Hotch wraps his arms around Emily and kisses her on the side of the neck. "That is definitely not 'Itsy Bitsy Spider'."

"I may have taught him a couple of other songs too," she says with a laugh.

He sighs. "I didn't even know that he was that good at playing."

She turns in his arms and wraps her arms around his neck. "But now you know and he hasn't played in a long time, so it's okay you didn't know." She kisses him on the lips. "And it doesn't make you a bad father just because you didn't know. Not worrying about not knowing would make you one."

"I love you," he says pressing his lips against hers and kisses her with everything he's got. "And thank you."


	8. Six

The Girl in Red

* * *

A/N - This is the longest chapter I have ever written before. It's almost 5000 words long and I think that's pretty cool. And a little something else about this chapter is that the whole 'needle in food' thing is actually something happened to me when I was 6 years old (like Rebecca is) and that is how I got the idea for this part of my story.

* * *

Emily sits on the couch in the living room with her sewing gear spread around her. She has never been that good at sewing, but Isabella's birthday party is next week and Rebecca's favorite dress has a hole in it. It's not just a small one that would go unnoticed, no, there is a big tear in the right side. A branch had been caught in the shirt of the dress the last time Rebecca had worn it, because she had thought climbing a tree while wearing a long dress would be smart. 'Rebecca needs to learn that not everything Jack does is a good idea for a little girl to also do', Emily thinks as she lets the needle slide through the white and pink silk fabric.

"Mommy is my dress done," Rebecca asks as she drops down on the couch next to Emily.

"Not yet sweetie, I still need to do a couple of more stitches," she says without taking her eyes off of the dress. Rebecca sighs and gets up from the couch again, but her movements are so quick that she knocks over the needle case and they fall to the floor.

"Mommy!" Rebecca gasps.

Emily quickly lays the dress on the table and lifts Rebecca of the floor. She is wearing slippers, but Rebecca's feet are bare so she cannot walk out of the room on her own. She gets up and places Rebecca on her hip and then walks out of the room with her. "I'm sorry mommy," Rebecca says as she is being placed back down on the hallway floor."

"It's okay, it was just an accident, but you can't come into the living room for the next couple for minutes, okay Becky?" Rebecca nods. "Good," she says and pats Rebecca's hair, "because we wouldn't want a needle to stick those pretty feet of yours." Rebecca runs off with a smile and Emily walks back into the living room and picks up the needles from the floor before sitting back down on the couch to finish sewing up the tear in the dress.

/

"You can't catch me, daddy," she squeals and Hotch quickly follows Rebecca into the living room. She is running fast and they circle the coffee table a couple of times. He is just about to catch her when Rebecca suddenly stops. "Ouch," she says and takes a hold of her right food.

"What happened? Are you okay?" he asks and looks worried at her.

Rebecca nods. "Yeah I'm fine now. It only hurt for a moment."

He takes her foot and looks at it. "Did you twist it?"

"No, I think I stepped on something."

He lets his fingers run over the sole of her foot, but he cannot feel anything there and it does not hurt when he touches it, so they look on floor but none of them can see anything there. "Well I think your foot is just fine now, so it's still time for bed."

"But you have to catch me first," Rebecca squeals and runs of again, but she does not get far before he has his arms wrap around her.

"Got you!" He lifts Rebecca of the floor and throws her over his shoulder. Her entire body is vibrating with laugher as she tries to get down. "You have to lie still or I might drop you on the floor."

"You wouldn't do that."

"I wouldn't?" he questions her and loosens his grip on her. Rebecca screams as she slides down his back, but of course he catches her before she can fall too far. He would never purposely let his daughter fall to the ground. "Come on Becky," Hotch says and puts Rebecca back on the floor, "it's time for bed."

"Okay daddy." Rebecca takes his hands as they walk up the stairs. "You will read me a story, right?"

"Don't I always?" Rebecca nods with a smile. "What story do you want tonight?"

"Cinderella."

He sighs with a small laugh. "Of course."

/

The next day Rebecca's right foot hurts when she steps on it and over the next four days it gets so bad that she cannot walk properly on it. Instead she walks on the outside of her foot so that there would not be any pressure on the pad. It works fine for the first couple of days, but then it starts to also hurt when she walks like that. And as a true Hotchner she does not tell her parents about the pain she is feeling. She hides it and tries to be strong. But then the day of her gym class came and when Rebecca refuses to participate she is sent down to the principal's office and her parents are called.

Rebecca sits outside of the office on a hard blue plastic chair. She swings her legs back and forth as she waits for her parents to be done taking to the principal. They both came to meet with him even though it was in the middle of a work day. Rebecca cannot remember that happing ever before. Usually it is only her mother that comes to meetings at the school and then her father or Mrs. Gilbert, her and Jack's nanny, will be watching them at home. But this time they both come. Rebecca does not know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but then again it is not every day that their 6 year-old daughter gets called to the principal's office.

Rebecca sighs and watches nervously as her parents walk out of the office and towards her. They sit down on each side of her. "We would like for you to tell us what happened," Emily says and lays her hand on Rebecca's knee.

"Didn't Mr. Baxter already tell you?"

"We would like for you to tell us," Hotch says and takes her hand in his. "It's not like you to behave like that. Refusing to participate in class and yelling at a teacher. What happened?"

Rebecca looks down. "Miss. Taylor didn't believe when I told her my foot hurt, because there wasn't anything to see on it, so I yelled at her and refused to dress in my gym clothes. Then she got mad and sent me to Mr. Baxter's office."

"Your foot hurts?" Emily asks completely ignoring everything else Rebecca has just told them. "That happened to it?"

"I stepped on something when me and daddy ran around the living room."

"Oh God!" Emily says gasping. "I know what you stepped on."

"What?" Hotch looks up at her with a surprised expression on his face.

"I was sewing in the living room and then Rebecca accidently knocked over the needle case and they fell all over the floor. Remember?" She looks down at Rebecca who nods. "But then yesterday I found half a needle under the coffee table. You must have stepped on it and then gotten the other half of the needle suck in your foot."

"That's not good," Rebecca says.

"No it's not," he says. "We will need to go to the ER to get your food check out."

Rebecca's eyes are filling with tears. "I don't want to go to the hospital."

Emily pulls Rebecca into her lap and wipes the tear of her cheeks. "You need to get your food looked at, Becky. We can't have you walking around on it with a half a needle stuck inside of it." Rebecca sniffles and cuddles up against her mother's chest. Emily runs her hand up and down her daughter's back trying to settle her cries.

/

Hotch is sitting with Rebecca in his lap just like Emily had done two hours earlier. He had actually had a meeting he needed to attend, but he had been able to move it to the next day so he and Rebecca could go to the ER. They had been waiting for over an hour and Rebecca is getting bored, but he knows that if they are unlucky then they will have to wait much longer, because a little foot pain isn't a life threatening emergency. Emily had wanted to be with them too, but she had work that could not be postponed and she also needs to pick Jack up after school. They would come join them later.

Being scared and crying has worn Rebecca out and he can feel how her chest rises and falls slowly. He is grateful that she is now sleep, because that way she will feel like time has gone faster than it really has. He sighs as another hour goes by before a nurse finally calls out to the room, "Rebecca Penefer Hotchner?"

He sighs in relief. "That's us," he says and signals for the nurse.

She approaches them and says with a friendly smile, "Please come with me."

He quickly gets up and navigates Rebecca over so she is sitting on his hip. She rubs her eyes and yawns. "Where are we going daddy?" Rebecca asks with a sleepy voice.

"We are going to see the doctor now," he says as he follows the nurse into an exam room. He sits Rebecca down on the exam table and removes her shoe and sock from her right foot. He can see that she is scared but she does not say a word. "Nothing bad is going to happen, Becky," he says and strokes her cheek. Rebecca just nods and fiddles with the ends of her hair, but then the door opens and a tall man in a lap coat walks in and she lets go of her hair.

"Hello I'm Dr. Riddle and you must be Rebecca," he says with a smile looking at her.

"Becky."

"Okay, Becky can you tell me what's wrong," Dr. Riddle asks her as he sits down on a stool and rolls over to them.

Rebecca points to her foot. "My foot hurts."

"What happened to it?" Dr. Riddle asks as he lifts her foot and looks at it.

"We think she may have stepped on a needle five days ago and half of it is now stuck in her foot."

"What makes you think that?"

"Mommy found half a needle on the floor where I hurt my foot."

"Well I can see a little mark up on the pad by your big toe and the one besides it." He moves his thumb to the mark to see if he can feel anything there.

"Ouch!" Rebecca yaps when Dr. Riddle presses down on the spot and she quickly moves her foot out of his reach. "That hurts."

"Sorry darling." He looks up at Hotch. "I can't really feel anything when I touch her foot, but I think you're right so now I'm going to send you up to radiology to get a couple of x-rays of your little foot." He pats Rebecca on the knee. "I will see you later Becky."

He helps Rebecca put on her sock and shoe while Dr. Riddle writes something down in her chart and then he shows them out. Hotch once again carries her as they make their way to the radiology department. This time they luckily only have to wait 15 minutes until a nurse call for Rebecca, but he is not allowed to come with her in. She takes the nurse hand and slowly walks in the room with her as good as she can on her bad foot. The room is big but there is really nothing there other than an exam table with a big white box over it. The nurse helps her up on the table and tells her to lie down on her back with her left knee bent and her right leg resting on it. The nurse pulls the machine, which is above Rebecca, down and adjusts it so the lighting cross is right over her foot.

"You will have to lie completely still while we take the picture, okay sweetie?"

"Okay," Rebecca says with a small voice.

The nurse walks out of the room to another one with big glass windows and Rebecca can see her standing next to another woman. Then there is a click and then another one. Rebecca looks around the room to see where it is coming from, but she cannot figure it out, and then the nurse walks back into the room. "You are all done now."

"You took the pictures?" Rebecca asks surprised.

"The two clicks you heard were us taking the x-rays," she says with a smile. Rebecca nods and crawls down from the table. The nurse takes her hand and Rebecca follows her out of the room again and limps to Hotch. "It didn't hurt at all, daddy," she says with a big smile and he lifts her up. The nurse tells them to walk down the hall to the next waiting area and wait there for Dr. Riddle.

Hotch sighs. "It feels like we don't do anything but wait today," he mumbles as he kisses Rebecca on the head and walks to yet another waiting area, but this one thankfully has toys for the children to play with. He puts her down on the floor by the doll house and Rebecca quickly starts to play with it. She has been so quiet all day so hearing her talk to herself while playing makes him smile and he sits down on the chair beside her.

45 minutes goes by and then Dr. Riddle walks towards them. He is pushing a pink and black kids' wheelchair in front of him. "Hi again little Becky." Rebecca turns around and her face lights up. "Is that for me?" she excitingly asks when she sees the wheelchair. Hotch is not as excited as Rebecca is, because he know what the wheelchair means. It means that they are not going to be leaving the hospital anytime soon.

"Yes it is," he says and then pats the seat. "Come on up and we will go to the exam room and talk about what's going to happen now."

Rebecca crawls up in the chair and then they walk to the room that Dr. Riddle previously had come from. In the room is an exam table, a desk, three chairs and a lot of light boards. Rebecca's x-ray hangs on one of the light boards and Hotch can clearly see the small needle on the picture.

"Your suspicion was right," Dr. Riddle says and points to the x-ray. "Rebecca has a needle stuck in her foot and unfortunately it sits too deep in her foot for me to just remove it. She will need to have it operated out. It's a small procedure that would take much more than 20 minutes, but because of her young age, Rebecca will have to be fully sedated."

/

After the conversion with Dr. Riddle Rebecca gets admitted and Hotch quickly calls Emily to let her know what is going on, and a half hour later her and Jack arrives. She has brought a bag with some toys and Rebecca's yellow teddy bear. It is her favorite one. She lays the bag in the food of the bed and hugs and kisses Rebecca many times. She does not want to let her go. Her little baby is hurt and she cannot help but think that it is her fault. If only she had picked up all the needles from the floor, then Rebecca would not be sitting in this hospital bed right now. She kisses Rebecca again and then feels a hand on her shoulder. She turns around and sees Hotch standing behind her. He pulls her into a tight hug and whispers in her ear, "This isn't your fault honey."

She sighs and whispers back, "Then way do I feel like it's my fault?"

"Because you're a good mother." He kisses her on the forehead and then walks over to Jack and tries to ruffles his hair, but Jack moves out of his reaches. "Don't mess up my hair, dad," Jack says and walks over to sit on the side of Rebecca's bed. He opens the bag and takes out the yellow bear.

Rebecca's face lights up. "You brought Daisy for me!" She takes the bear from Jack's hand quickly and hugs it tight.

"Yeah, and mom also packed some of your toys and stuff." He looks through the bag but cannot find anything in it that can keep him from getting bored. He sighs.

"It's in the front pocket of the bag," she says with a smile knowing exactly what he was looking for, because she knew that he would forget about it and there for she packed it herself.

Jack opens the pocket and there it is – his navy blue Nintendo. "Thanks mom."

She gets up from the chair beside the bed that she had been sitting on. "You're welcome sweetie." She kisses Jack on the cheek and he does not try to move away. "Dad and I are going to get some coffee, will the two of you be alright on your on for 10 minutes?"

Jack rolls his eyes at her. "We will be just fine."

Emily laughs and then takes Hotch's hand in hers as they work out the room. Jack opens his Nintendo and starts playing while Rebecca finds her drawing things in the bag. She rolls the small table on wheel over the bed. She lays her pencils in her lap and her coloring book on table. She is just about to start drawing when they hear the door being open. "It has only been 2 minutes, we are fine!" Jack says with a sigh without taking his eyes of the Nintendo, but it is not their parents the walks through the door.

"Ally!" Rebecca squeals and almost jumps out the bed to hug Ashley when she remembers the needle in her hand.

"Hey honey boom, how are you?" she asks with a big grin and hugs first Rebecca and then Jack. It makes him blush, so he quickly hides his face behind the screen. Ashley does not comment on it instead she turns her back to him giving the red color on his cheeks a chance to go away. She knows Jack's has a crush on her and she thinks it is sweet. Ashley pulls a chair up to the bed and sits down on it.

"Have you seen this?" Rebecca asks and holds her hand out. "I'm here to get the needle I have in my foot out and then they put one in my hand. I don't get it."

Ashley laughs. "The needle in your hand gives your body water."

"I know, mommy told me." She point to the IV bag. "The water is up there and then it runs down the tube and then into the needle and then in my hand," she takes a deep breath, "and then out in my body."

"Yeah that's right."

"Have you seen my wheelchair?"

Ashley looks in the direction Rebecca is pointing and sees the wheelchair standing in the corner. "It's really cool!" she says with a smile. "Have you got to drive around on it?"

Rebecca shrugs her shoulders. "Not really."

"You want to?"

Rebecca's face lights up. "Yeah!"

"Come on then." Ashley gets the chair and then helps Rebecca down from the bed and into it. She places the IV pole on the side and they are just about to walk out the room when Jack asks, "What are you doing?"

"We are going for a walk," Rebecca says happily.

Ashley smiles at him. "You want to come too?" Jack's cheeks starts to redden again as he nods. "Then come."

/

She lifts the coffee cup to her lips and takes a sip, but the coffee is really hot and she burns her tongue. She sighs and grubs her right temple with her free hand.

"Everything is going to be already," he says as he wraps an arm around her.

She places her coffee cup on the window still on front of her and lays her head on his shoulder. "Stop saying that everything will be already, because I know it will, but I'm still allowed to worry."

He chuckles and kisses the side of her head. "Sorry."

"Let's go back to the room again," she says and picks up her coffee cup. He nods and takes her hand in his and then they walk down the hall. The door to Rebecca's room is slightly open, but they cannot hear any sounds coming from inside. Emily opens the door fully and sees that the room is empty. "They are not here," she says and looks worried at Hotch.

"What?" He looks confused around the room. "Where can they be?"

"I don't know," she says and just as they are about to panic those they hear Rebecca's high laughter. They turn towards it and see Rebecca in her wheelchair come racing around the corner. Jack is pushing her as fast as he can and behind them comes Ashley.

"Hi mommy," squeals Rebecca as she and Jack runs past them. Ashley does not follow the kids as they disappear around the next corner; instead she quickly stops up when she sees the not all too happy expression on her boss' face.

"Seaver," he says showing no emotions what so ever and Ashley actually feels like a little girl instead of the tough FBI agent she is and she prepares herself to be yelled at. But then he smiles slightly. "It looks like the kids are having fun."

"Oh, yes they are," she says surprised. "I'm sorry we just left the room without telling you, but you weren't there so-"

Emily stops her rambling. "It's okay Ashley." Then she smiles and gives her a quick hug. "It's nice of you to come. I'm sure Rebecca was very happy to see you." Ashley smiles and then Rebecca and Jack reappear from around the corner yet again. But this Jack stops up by the adults instead of running another round.

"Look who came to visit me mommy," Rebecca says pointing at Ashley. "Ally."

"I can see that, but now I think it would be best if Jack wheels you back into bed."

Both children sigh, but those as they are told.

/

Ashley was not the only one that came to visit. By eight o'clock every member of the team has been by to visit Rebecca and give her 'get well soon' gifts. Rebecca was ecstatic with joy over all the attention she was getting and all the nice things she had received. But now Emily is the only one of them left in the little girl's room. Hotch and Jack had left around the same time as the others had, because Jack could not stay at the hospital all night. He needs to do his homework and be in bed at a decent time. They could just have called Mrs. Gilbert and get her to stay with him, but Emily did not mind staying at the hospital alone and even though Jack did not say anything, they both knew that he would rather stay with one of his parents.

So now she lies on the hard couch by her daughter's hospital bed trying to get some sleep. Rebecca's operation was supposed to be at 9pm but earlier in the night a multiple victims from a big car accident had come into the ER and therefore the operation was moved to early the next morning. Rebecca is sound asleep, but the constant coughing of the little boy in the bed next to Rebecca keeps Emily from doing the same.

He had been admitted with his parents only a few hours earlier with what she had guessed was a high fever and bad cold.

The boy's finally stops coughing and she drifts of the sleep.

"Ma'am." Someone is shaking her shoulder. She opens her eyes and sits up on the couch slowly. "What time is it?"

"It's 6am and time for your daughter to have her medicine."

Emily sighs. She may have gotten five hours of sleep, but it felt more like five minutes. "Okay." She walks to the bed and gently strokes Rebecca's hair. "You need to wake up honey. It's time for you to have your medicine."

Rebecca stretches and yawns. "I'm thirsty mommy."

"I know sweetie, but remember what Dr. Riddle told you. You can't eat or drink anything before your surgery. Your tummy needs to be completely empty," she says stroking Rebecca's cheek when she makes a sad face.

"Well actually," the nurse says as walks up to them with two paper cups in her hands, "you are allowed you drink this cup of water after you have taken the medicine." She smiles and hands Rebecca the small paper cup with the thick, yellowish liquid. She quickly drinks all of it and makes a face as she gives the nurse the cup back. "It tastes really yucky!"

"It's supposed to taste like strawberries," she says and hands Rebecca the other cup.

"Well it really doesn't," Rebecca says as she accepts the cup. The water is a bit tepid but she is so thirsty that she does not care. When the cup is empty Rebecca sighs. She is still so thirsty, but she knows that they will not give her anymore water even if she asks nicely.

"Now the medicine just needs some time to work and in about an hour Dr. Riddle will come and take you to surgery," the nurse says and Rebecca hands her the empty cup and then she leaves the room.

Rebecca takes Daisy and hugs her tight. "Mommy, I'm a little scared."

"It's okay to be scared," she says with a small assuring smile. "But you need to get a little more sleep, okay?"

Rebecca nods. "Will you lie in the bed with me?"

"Of course," she says and crawls in the bed. Rebecca moves over so there is more room for her. Emily wraps her arm around her and kisses her on the head. "Now close your eyes and try and fall asleep." Rebecca does and five minutes later Emily can hear her breathing deeply and she knows Rebecca is asleep. But she never manages to fall asleep herself and watches as the light that shines through the blinds get lighter and lighter and by the time Dr. Riddle walks into the room at seven then it is completely light outside.

"Good morning Mrs. Hotchner," Dr. Riddle says as he picks up Rebecca's chart. "How is Becky?"

She sits up in the bed. "She is hungry, thirsty and a little scared, but otherwise she is fine."

"That is to be expected," he says with a smile. "Do you mind waking her up?"

"Of course not." She turns to Rebecca. "Sweetie it's time to wake up."

"Not again." She stretches and slowly opens her eyes.

Dr. Riddle sits on the bed on opposite side of where Emily is sitting. "It's time for me to take you down to surgery now, but there is one little thing I need to know before we go."

"What's that?" Rebecca asks curiously.

"You will need to have a cast on your foot for two weeks, so what color would you like it to be? I promise to make sure it's the one you want."

/

Rebecca slowly opens her eyes. Her body feels giddy and she can't really remember where she is. Everything around her is white and it is so quiet, so she knows that she is not at home. Then Rebecca remembers that she is at hospital, but she is not in her room anymore. Here the walls are not sky blue. Actually she cannot see the walls, because a white curtain had been dragged around her bed. Rebecca tries to sit up it the bed, but it makes her head spin, so she lies back down and instead calls out. "Is somebody there?" Her voice seems high in the quiet room even though it is just above a whisper.

The curtain is dragged to the side. "Oh hey sweetie, you're wake," an elderly nurse says with a big smile. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm thirsty."

"I will get you some water then." She takes the jug of the bedside table and pours some water in a plastic cup. "Here you go sweetheart."

Rebecca takes the cup from her hand and drinks the water happily. "When will my mommy come?"

"I will take you down to her in a moment," she says and takes the cup from Rebecca's hand and places it back on the table. "How is your foot?"

"It doesn't hurt."

"That's good," she says and walks off.

Rebecca sighs, but then she remember something and pushes the duvet away from her foot. On her small right foot it a big red cast with a smiley face drawn on the side and the words 'As I promised' written underneath. Rebecca laughs. Yes Dr. Riddle kept his promise.


	9. Seven

The Girl in Red

* * *

Rebecca opens the study door slowly and peeps around it. She sees Hotch sitting at the desk reading something. Rebecca knows that's she is not supposed to disturb her father when he is working, but she is bored. Her mother and Jack are not home and she does not want to play by herself anymore. She wants to play with someone and he is the only one that is home, and she has a really good idea to what they can do together.

"Is there something I can do for you, Becky?" he asks without looking up from the case file he is reading. Rebecca pushes the door fully open and walks into the study. She leans over the desk and places her head in her hands. Rebecca does not say anything but just looks at him. He can feel her staring at him and he cannot concentrate. He sighs. "Becky, stop staring at me and just tell me what you want."

"I want you to help me paint my room."

"What?" he asks surprised.

"I want to paint my room and I want you to help me, because I'm only seven and can't do it myself."

"Okay."

"What?" This time it was Rebecca's turn to look surprised. "We are really going to paint my room?"

"Yes we are." He closes the file and walks to Rebecca. "So, what color do you want?" He asks sitting down on the edge of the table.

She turns her head in her hands to look at him. "I want a sky."

"Sky?"

Rebecca nods and stands up straight. "I want blue walls with big white clouds, a sun and a rainbow. Everything you see in the sky," she explains with a big smile and hand gestures.

He smiles. "Well if that is what you want then we better go out and get some paint." He takes Rebecca's small hand in his own and they walk out of the study. She looks up at him. "Are we really doing this daddy?"

He picks her up from the floor. "If you want us to paint your room then we will do it."

"But don't you have to work?"

He kisses her on the cheek. "I can work tomorrow."

/

Rebecca lays the brush by the bucket of light blue paint and sits down on her plastic covered chair. Everything in her room is covered in see-through plastic so that it will not get paint on it. 'Maybe she should have been covered in plastic too,' Hotch thinks as he looks at Rebecca. She has paint everywhere. On her face, on her clothes – but they are old so it is okay – on her hands and in her hair. He wonders how they will ever be able to get the blue paint out of her hair.

"When will the paint be dry daddy?" Rebecca asks as she rubs her nose with the palm of her hand.

"Well," he looks around at the walls, "it's supposed to be quick drying paint, so we should be able to start painting clouds on this wall now," he says patting the left side wall.

"Okie dokie," Rebecca says with a big smile as she gets up and finds a new brush. Hotch opens the bucket with the white paint and Rebecca dips her brush in it. "You do the high clouds and I do the low clouds, but no dripping paint on my head!"

"I will try not to," he says and finds a brush. He dips it in the paint and with a quick movement of the hand the outline of a cloud is on the wall just over Rebecca's head. He fills it up by dabbing the head of the brush over and over again on the same area. When he is finished with the first one he turns to Rebecca and says, "So what do you think?" She looks up at the cloud but does not say anything. "You don't like it like that?"

"How did you do it?"

"Like this." He takes his brush and shows her. "It's not very difficult."

"Can we do it like you do on all of them?"

"You like it like that?"

"It looks really pretty daddy," Rebecca says with a smile and then dips her brush in the paint and does as he had shown her.

For some time neither of them says anything, they just paint one cloud after another in silent and when all walls – but the one with the window – are covered with white clouds in many different shapes and sizes they put away their brushes. Rebecca looks from wall to wall with a big smile. "Now we are almost done."

"What do you want to do now?"

"I want to paint the rainbow, but by myself."

"Then what do you want me to do?"

She looks around the room and then smiles. "Can we paint my bedside lamp as a sun?"

He looks at it. It is round and hangs good high on the wall to make a great sun if it just gets a bit of yellow paint. "Yeah why not."

"Yaaay!" Rebecca claps her hands. "But maybe there should be something more on one of the walls." She looks thoughtful at the wall in front of her.

"Maybe there could be a plane." Hotch says.

"Yes! But not a plane. A jet!"

"A jet? Why a jet?"

Rebecca rolls her eyes at him. "Come on dad! You and mom fly on a jet all the time, so of course it has to be a jet."

"How silly of me to forget that," he says with a grin and grabs a small brush and the white and black paint, so that he can mix a light grey color for the jet. Rebecca gets the bucket with green and is just about to start painting when she thinks of something and turns to Hotch. "Oh! And can you make small smiling faces in the windows? You know, so it looks like you and mommy are smiling at me?"

He smiles so both dimples are showing. "I will do my best."

"Great!" she says and sends him an even bigger smile, before she turns back to get started on the rainbow.

/

Emily hangs the clothes on the dressing room door. She really only wanted to try on the blue blouse, but Garcia and JJ had convinced her to try on a lot of other things – one being a beautiful long red dress that she did not really know when she would be able to use. It was not like she and Hotch really had time to go out. She takes off her shoes, pants and shirt and for a moment she just looks at herself in the big mirror. She turns to one side and then the other as she lets her hands move over her pale skin. She looks herself over again and again and she actually likes what she sees. For a woman her age she looks good – really good.

She shakes her head and with a grin she turns to the door and the big amount of clothes on it. She decides to try on the red dress first, so she takes it off the hanger and pulls it over her head. The dress is still over her chest when she hears the first lines of Uncle Kracker's "Smile" fill the dressing room. She quickly tries to pull the dress down with one hand while she fanatical looks through her bag with the other. But when she finally gets a hold of her phone it has already stopped ringing and she is just about to check who had called when there is a knock on the door.

"Come in," she says putting her phone away.

Garcia opens the door. "Your daughter wants to know why you are not answering your phone."

"I didn't get to it in time," she says and holds her hand out for the phone.

Garcia hands it over and looks Emily up and down. "You look hot!"

She rolls her eyes and places the phone by her ear. "What's up Becky?" she asks while trying to close the zipper in the side of the dress.

"Where are you?"

She places the phone between her shoulder and ear. "Oh, I'm in a dressing room trying on some clothes." She pulls on the zipper hard and almost drops the phone. So instead of trying again she quickly says. "Hold on a moment sweetie." She lays the phone of the chair and zips up the zipper. "I'm back."

"Does you being in a dressing room mean that you are not in the car on your way home?"

She wrinkles her eyebrows. "Yes that is what it means. Are you okay honey?"

"Yeah I'm fine. Daddy just said that I could talk to you if you were driving and if you were on your way home then I wouldn't need to call you because then you wouldn't be able to buy what I really want you to buy for me."

"And what must that be?"

"Stars that glows in the dark."

"And why would you need those?"

"For my room! The sky room or the rainbow room, I haven't really decided on which one yet."

"Rebecca, what are you talking about?" she asks confused.

"My room. I painted it."

"You what?"

"Daddy helped me."

She sighs. "Please let me speak with your father."

"Oh, okay."

Emily pinches the bridge of her nose and waits in silent till Hotch says, "How is shopping going?"

She ignores his question. "You painted Becky's room?"

"Well yes. She really wanted to and it was just the two of us home so I thought it was a good idea and something for her and me to do together."

She sighs. "I told Rebecca last week that she couldn't have her room painted till after her birthday."

"Why?"

"Because our daughter is too spoiled and she needs to learn how it is to have to wait for things." She can hear him laugh at her reply. "But it's true!"

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know." She sighs. "It doesn't matter; I will buy the stars and be home as quickly as possible."

"Okay, see you later honey."

"Yeah bye." She hangs up the phone, lets out a deep sigh and looks at herself in the mirror. The red dress is really pretty and looks good on her. She shakes her head with a smile and mumbles to herself, "Maybe my seven year-old daughter has already stopped listening to me, but at least I still look hot."

/

"You are really good at making planes," Emily whispers as she looks at each of the walls in the dim light of Rebecca's bedside lamp – or the sun as Rebecca calls it. The room looks really pretty, but she is still kind of mad at Rebecca for asking her father to paint the room with her when she had already been told no one time before.

"It's not a plane, it's a jet," he says with a smile and wraps an arm around her shoulder.

"A jet? Why a jet?"

"Because that is what we fly in."

She smiles. "Of course and I'm guessing that the two people in the window smiling and waving is you and me."

"That's right." He kisses her on the side of her head.

She giggles and lays her head on his shoulder. "Maybe the whole room-painting-thing wasn't that bad anyway."

"And Rebecca seems to really love her room."

"And Rebecca would also really love it if she could get some sleep, but she doesn't see that happing anytime soon if the two of you keep standing in here talking," Rebecca mumbles from under her covers.

"Sorry sweetie," Emily says with a laugh and switches of the sun and then both parents walk out and close the door to the rainbow room after them.


	10. Eight

The Girl in Red

* * *

Rebecca runs as fast as she can through the house and out of the front door to the garden. Isabella is right behind her and little Eric does everything he can to keep up with them. They stop at the front porch and while breathing heavily they look around for Jack and Henry. At first they cannot see them, but then Rebecca sees something move out of the corner of her eye and quickly runs in the direction of what she thinks are them. She runs fast, faster than most of the girls her age. She likes being quick and JJ often tells her to quit ballet and take up soccer instead, because she would be perfect for it. Rebecca runs around the corner of the house and directly into a much taller person than she had expected. She stumbles a few steps backward before she falls on her butt. "Sorry," she mumbles and looks up into the face of her father.

He ignores her apology and instead asks, "Are you okay?"

Rebecca sighs. "I fell on my butt not my neck, dad. I'm just fine, but I have to catch Jack and Henry before they go all serial killer on Daisy, and if that happens then you have to call the team together so you can profile them and catch them yourself, and THAT would totally ruin your nice and sunny Saturday, don't you think?" she says as she gets up from the ground.

"That wouldn't be good."

"Just my words," Rebecca says and looks up at her father with a hand above her eyes to block out the sun. "Have you seen them?"

"I think I saw them by the big trees."

"Thanks daddy," she quickly says before she takes off running. For a moment she wonders where Isabella and Eric are, but then as she gets around the house to the backyard she sees them standing under one of the big tress Hotch had referred to. They are looking up at something and Rebecca guesses that it's Jack and Henry or just Jack. As she comes closer Henry jumps down from one of the low branches and then stands between his sister and brother and looks up at Jack just like them. Rebecca does the same and sees Jack on the top of the tree with Daisy in one hand and a thin rope in the other. At first she cannot really see what he is doing with the rope, but then it hits her. He is going to hang Daisy from it. Rebecca cannot let him do that to her beloved yellow teddy bear.

"Jack, give me back Daisy right now!" Rebecca yells, but Jack just laughs at her and climbs a bit higher. She crosses her arms tightly across her chest and turn to face Henry. "Get him to come down!" Rebecca demands. "Or I will kick you in shin."

Henry looks at her and knows she is serious. He also knows that her running super fast isn't the only reason for why his mother thinks that Rebecca should play soccer. "If I have to climb up there after him, then I might need some help," he says.

"I can't believe you guys," she says looking mad at him. "But if you can't get up there by yourself, then you are helping me up."

"Why me? And why would I even help you?"

"It has to be you, because Eric is only 3 and Isabella isn't strong enough to carry me," she says madly. "And if you don't help me, then I will kick you where it hurts and this time I'm not talking about your shins."

Henry sighs. "Okay, okay, fine." He gives her a boost so she can reach the low branches and then she swings her leg over it so she can pull herself up in a sitting position on it. Rebecca steadies herself and then slowly gets to her feet and starts climbing up the tree.

"Don't slip," Isabella says nervously.

"I'm not going to slip," Rebecca says annoyed, but when the branch under her feet makes a cracking noise she starts getting a bit nervous herself. She quickly gets of the branch and climbs further up the tree till she reaches Jack. "Give me back Daisy," she says and smacks him on the leg, but he just laughs at her again, so she decides to hit him harder. The force of the hit is much harder then Jack had foreseen and it causes him to loosen his hold on the yellow bear and it falls quickly to the ground.

Rebecca looks shocked up at him. "You dropped Daisy!"

"Well you got her down from the tree like you wanted."

"I wanted you to give her to me, not drop her!"

"Sorry."

"Stupid, stupid boy!" Rebecca says hitting his leg with a close fist repeatedly.

"I said I was sorry," Jack says and moves his leg out of her reach.

"Yeah but I know you didn't mean it," she says and hits his other leg.

Jack groans. "Would you stop hitting me?" he asks annoyed.

Rebecca does not answer him instead she starts climbing down again. She lets her feet drop back down on the cracking branch and tries to put as little weight on it as she possibly can, but it does not help. The branch snaps anyway under her feet and Rebecca is clutching tightly to the branch above her to keep her from falling down.

"Oh, shit," Jack curses when he sees her feet dangling back and forth realizing that there is not a branch within reach for her to stand on. "Hold on tight and don't go anywhere."

"Like there is anywhere for me to go," Rebecca mumbles as Jack climbs down to her. He grasps a hold on the back of her red t-shirt and tries to lift her up, but he cannot get her up like that without strangling her. So Jack decides to climb all the way down himself. When he is on the ground again he turns and looks up at Rebecca. "Alright, just let go of the branch and I will catch you."

"I don't think that's a good idea," she says, but her arms and hands are starting to really hurts, so she might have to do as he says.

"Come on, just do it."

"Are you sure you're going to catch me?" Rebecca asks. "Maybe we should get mom or dad?"

"No, I'll catch you," he answers. "I swear."

Rebecca sighs quietly and glances at the sky before looking down. "Okay, I'm letting go now." She closes her eyes and let's go of the branch.

Jack would probably have caught her like he had promised if it was not for her shirt getting caught on one of branches throwing her off balance and head first into Jack's arms. She crashed into Jack and they both fell to the ground with a loud bump.

"I'm getting mom," Isabella says and runs off with Eric on her tail.

Rebecca sits up and when the shock of falling down wears off she begins to feel a sharp pain in her head. She lifts a hand to her forehead where it hurts the most and when she brings it back down again she sees that there is blood on her fingers.

"Oh my God," Emily rushes toward them and then kneels in front of Rebecca. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Jack didn't catch me like he said he would," Rebecca mumbles.

"What?" She looks from Rebecca to the boys. "Jack, tell me what happened."

And he is just about to, when Rebecca says, "I was climbing the tree when the branch I stood on snapped and I fell down." She presses her hand to the cut on her forehead. "Can I get a band-aid?" Emily nods and quickly helps Rebecca up and they and the others walk back to the house. When Jack sees that his father is not following them then he stays behind too. For a moment they just stand there under the tree not saying a word, but then Hotch turns to Jack. "You should be very happy to have a sister like, Becky. She is only 8 years old and she is already willing to lie for you, so you wouldn't get in trouble."

"Sorry," Jack says and looks down at the ground ashamed.

"It's not your fault that she fell down, but I'm guessing it was because of you that she was up in the tree. Probably to get Daisy down?" he asks and nods his head towards the yellow bear still lying on the ground under the tree.

Jack picks the bear up. "I will give it to her right away."

"Good," Hotch says with a smile and then he lays a hand on Jack's shoulder and they walk up to the house where they can hear Rebecca complaining as Emily tries to fix her head wound.


	11. Nine

The Girl in Red

* * *

"Aaron what are you doing?" Emily laughs happily as he runs a hand under her nightshirt. She is lying with her back to him and is still half asleep. He kisses his way down her neck to her shoulder as his hand moves upwards. She giggles and tries to get him to stop by moving out of his reach. "We can't do this now."

"Why not?" he asks with a smile.

"Because it's 8:30 on a Saturday morning."

"And…?"

"And we have a daughter, who is probably awake right now and she might be coming in here any minute asking for breakfast."

"If she was awake then she would have already asked for breakfast by now. And why can't she just make it herself?" he says running his hand along the side of her breast and kisses her neck.

She shivers and moves her back closer to his front. "Rebecca can't reach the cereal boxes by herself," She turns around in his arms and looks at him with a smile before she kisses him quick on the lips, pushes him into his back and straddles his waist, "and you were the one who told her she couldn't crawl onto the counter anymore."

He lays his hands on her naked legs and lets his thumbs run circles on her inner thighs. "Well the last time she crawled around on the counter she fell off and broke her collarbone. She is almost as clumsy as her mother," he says with a grin and leans up to kiss her, but Emily moves out of his way and smacks him lightly on the chest.

"I'm not that clumsy!" she says and places her hands on her hips. "Well maybe that's a lie, but at least it has been years since I last broke something."

Hotch smirks at her.

"What are you-" but before she even get's to finish her sentence he has swept her under him. The sudden movement makes her squeal loudly and he quickly covers her mouth with his not wanting her to wake any of the kids. She moves her hands up his bare back and lets them stay on his shoulder blades as she deepens the kiss. He moves so he is lying with one knee between her legs and she spreads them wider to make more room for him and so that he will not crush her with his weight. She cries out as he rubs his leg against her center, but he quickly stops again. "Did you hear that?" he asks looking towards the door.

For a moment they both stay silent and listen.

"I can't hear anything," Emily says with a smile and pulls her nightshirt over her head, leaving her only wearing purple and black stripped panties. Hotch grabs the duvet and covers the both of them with it before he leans down and kisses her again. His hand snakes its way down Emily's stomach to her panties. He stops just before sliding into the soft material and let's his fingers dance over the skin just above the edge of the panties. She moans and raises her hips to meet his as his mouth travels from hers, down her throat to her right breast.

"Mommy will you help... What are you...? Oh God!" Rebecca covers her eyes quickly as her parents more or less jumps away from each other.

Emily covers herself with the duvet. "Becky?"

"I can never look at you again!" the girl says and turns to walk out of her parents' bedroom with her hands still covering her eyes. "What were they thinking doing something like that with kids in the house," Rebecca mumbles to herself, but loud enough for Hotch and Emily to hear. She walks down to the kitchen and goes against her father's words by crawling onto the counter looking for the box with her favorite cereal.

She is still standing on the counter with her head in the cupboard when she hears her father's voice. "You know you're not allowed to be up there."

"But I'm hungry and I didn't know when you would be down," Rebecca says as he places his hands under her arms and lifts her down. She smooths out her yellow nightgown and then walks over to the dining-table to wait for her food.

"Do you want Coco Pops or those rainbow colored thingies?"

Rebecca rolled her eyes. "Daddy, I always have Coco Pops on the weekends. Jack is the one who eats the other things."

"Sorry Miss Hotchner, my bad," he says and fills the bowl with Coco Pops and milk and then puts it down in front of her. She looks from it and up to him. "What's wrong with it?"

"It's not the right bowl."

Hotch sighs. "I always give you cereal in that bowl."

"Yes on Sundays. Mommy usually makes my breakfast on Saturdays and she gives me my cereal in the white bowl with the stars on it." Rebecca pushes the bowl away and folds her arms over her chest.

"Seriously?" he asks tired.

"No," she pulls the bowl back and takes the spoon into her mouth, "but next time get it right," she says and pulls the spoon from her mouth as milk runs down her chin. Hotch shakes his head and sits on the chair on the other side of the table. A moment later Emily comes down the stairs dressed in her red silk dressing gown and sits down next to him. Both of them look at Rebecca while she eats and cannot find anything to say. They know they have to talk to her about what she just saw, but talking about sex with their 9 year-old daughter just seems so wrong. Both of them had hoped they would be able to wait to have this conversation for a few years. They had talked about where babies come from when JJ was pregnant with Eric, but this was something else.

Rebecca lays the spoon in the bowl and looks up at her parents. "Are we going to talk now?"

Emily clears her throat. "Yes we are."

"So about what you saw before," Hotch started.

"You were having sex."

"No!" Hotch and Emily quickly says.

"Then you were about to have sex."

Emily sighs. "What do you know about sex?"

"Sex is what adults are having when they are not making babies," Rebecca says, "well if they are drunk then sometimes there might come a baby out of it anyway."

"How do you know this?" Hotch asks.

Rebecca shrugs her shoulders. "From the others kids at school and from watching TV and things like that." They look surprised at her. "You do know I'm nine and not a little kid, right?"

Neither of them says anything so Rebecca gets up and carries her bowl and spoon to the dishwasher. She puts the things down and looks towards the staircase when she hears footsteps walking down. "Morning Jack," she says cheerfully.

"Morning Becky," he says tired and looks at his parents, who are still sitting quietly by the dining-table. "What's wrong with them?"

"I walked in on them having sex and then we had the sex talk," Rebecca says without even as much as blushing.

Jack looks from her to their parents and back to Rebecca. "Eww! It's way too early for a subject like that," he says turning on his heel and walks back up the stairs.


	12. Ten

The Girl in Red

* * *

"Mommy! I found a blue one!" Rebecca yells happily and dips her hand into the icy cold salt water for the small piece of beach glass. She has been collecting the glass ever since her father had told her how the glass was from bottles that have been thrown overboard and then shaped by the waves. She rinses off the sand and then places it into the breast pocket of her big, white shirt. She is wearing it over her red bathing suit, because the wind is cool and her mother would not let her go without it. It is also a bit too cold for swimming and yet, Rebecca is wadding farther and farther out in the water. Jack did not want to come with her; he says he will not go anywhere near the water till it is warmer. She hears him yelling something to her, but she cannot hear what. Then he holds his hand up and she can see that he is holding a big piece of beach glass. Rebecca smiles big and sends him a finger kiss as a 'thank you'.

Jack laughs and tosses the piece of glass into Rebecca's bag. "What is she going to do with all of these pieces of glass?" he asks as he sits down on the blanket next to Emily.

"I don't really know," she says, laying the book she is reading down with the cover sides up so that her place is not lost. "I think she just likes to collect them and then keeps them so collecting wouldn't have been a waste of time."

"That's stupid."

"Don't call your sister stupid."

"I'm not calling her stupid, dad. I'm calling what she is doing stupid," Jack says and gets up to look for more beach glass for Rebecca.

Hotch shakes his head with a grin and then looks out at his daughter who is standing knee high in the water. His little girl is not sitting in the sand listening to her iPod or having her cell phone constantly pressed to her ear. No, she has her big brown eyes on the water looking for beach glass. Her long black hair pulled back into a high pony tail and her bangs are being held back with a pair of butterfly hair clips, so it will not fall into her eyes. She looks just like her mother. "She looks like you."

Emily takes her eyes from the book and looks in the same direction as Hotch. She smiles and kisses him on the cheek. "Becky may look like me, but she has your sweet dimples."

He turns his head towards her. "You have dimples too."

"Yeah, but mine aren't as cute as yours and nowhere near as cute as Becky's."

"I don't know, I find your dimples quite cute, I have to say," he says making Emily smile so both dimples are visible. He leans in and kisses first the right one and then the left. It makes her laugh. Hotch quickly moves the book from her hand and then leans in and kisses her on the lips. Emily wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him down with her on the blanket.

She is lying on her back while he is on his side, but leaning over her. He moves her shirt off her shoulder and places small kisses along her collarbone and up her neck back to her lips. She parts them and lets his tongue enter her mouth.

"Come on! Do you two have to do that in public?" Jack asks as he puts pieces of beach glass fall into Rebecca's bag. Emily laughs against Hotch's lips, but they keep kissing. Jack sighs and places his hands on his hips while he looks out at the ocean. Jack frowns and asks, "Where is Becky?"

"What?" Hotch asks and stops kissing Emily. "What do you mean by 'Where's

Becky'?"

Jack looks down at his father. "I mean, where is she?"

Hotch and Emily pull away from each other and quickly gets to their feet. They look out at the water and up and down the beach, but there is no sight of their daughter. Emily takes two steps forward and screams, "Rebecca?" Her voice thick with panic and tears starts to fill up in her eyes. "Rebecca, where are you?"

Hotch wants to look for his daughter, but he does not know where to start and Emily's scream makes it impossible for him to think. "What's that?" Jack asks and points at something white that lies by the water. Every other second a wave washes over it and threatens to take it back with it into the ocean. Hotch runs as fast as he can to it and picks it up. It is Rebecca's white shirt. In the breast pock her piece of blue beach glass still lies, squeezes the shirt to his chest as he looks out over the water hoping to spot Rebecca somewhere between the growing waves. He cannot see her and panic fills his body more and more.

Hotch quickly takes his shoes off and leaves it in the sand with Rebecca's shirt as he makes his way through the cold water. He dives in the place he last saw Rebecca, but there is no sight of her there. When he comes up for air he can hear someone coughing behind him and for a moment he feels relieved. But when he turns around he sees that the person coughing is not Rebecca, it is Jack, who has joined him in the water in search for his sister.

On the sandy shore Emily stands still and yells her daughter's name while tears run down her cheeks. She blames herself. Rebecca is gone and it is her fault, because she did not keep an eye on her as she was supposed to. "Becky, where are you?" she yells once again and tries to hold back a sob.

"I'm right here." Emily turns around slowly and cannot quite believe her eyes when she sees Rebecca standing ten feet behind her. "What are dad and Jack doing in the water?"

Emily runs as fast as her feet carry to Rebecca. She wraps her arms tightly around her, not caring that the girl keeps saying she cannot breathe. But then the relief Emily is feeling turns into anger. She let's go of Rebecca and shakes her shoulders. "Where the hell where you?"

Rebecca looks surprised by the sudden anger her mother has sent towards her. "I just had to pee. Why are you yelling at me?" the girl stutters, afraid she will be yelled at again.

"Why am I yelling at you?" Emily asks trying to sound less angry. "We look up and see you gone and then we find your shirt lying in the water. Your father and Jack are out in the water looking for you, thinking you are drowning." She shakes her head and then walks from Rebecca to shoreline. "I found her!" she yells as high as she can, hoping they can hear her, and from the look on their faces she thinks they can.

Hotch and Jack walk out of the water and Emily hands each of them a towel. They wrap it around themselves and sit down in the sand. "Why didn't you tell us you were leaving?" Hotch asks Rebecca, "and why did you leave your shirt?"

Rebecca sniffles. The unexpected yelling she got from her mother had made her cry. "Jack wasn't here and you and mom where kissing, so I didn't want to intrude you. And my shirt got wet when I was in the water, so I just took it off," she says and a tear rolls down her cheek. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"We know," Emily says with a sigh and then hugs her daughter tight. "And I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"You wanna go look for beach glass with me in the sand?" Jack asks and Rebecca nods against her mother's chest. Emily lets go of her and then watches as both her children walk by the shoreline with their eyes fixed on the sand and Rebecca's hand in Jack's, so she cannot disappear again.

Hotch wraps his arm around Emily's shoulder and kisses the side of her head before asking. "Remember when you told me about how you wanted to get Becky a necklace with a GPS tracker in and I told you we shouldn't, because she needs a little privacy?"

"Yeah," she looks curious at her husband.

"To hell with privacy, I'm having one made for her tomorrow!"

* * *

_N/A - The 2011 Profiler's Choice CM Awards nomination ballot is now up. So everyone, please go nominate all your favorite stories and writers. http : / .net / topic /74868 / 48350094 / 1 / _


	13. Eleven

The Girl in Red

* * *

It is time for bed, so Hotch knocks on the door to Rebecca's bedroom. He can hear voices coming from the other side, so when he opens the door he gets confused by not seeing Rebecca lying on her bed talking on her phone with Isabella or watching TV. The TV is on, but Rebecca is not there watching it. The room is empty. Hotch closes the door again and walks to the bathroom. Maybe she is there, he thinks, but the bathroom is also empty. Hotch walks down the stairs and onto the living room. "Where is our daughter?" he asks Emily, who is sitting on the coach reading.

Emily lifts her head from the book and looks at him with a smile. "She is outside looking at the stars," she tells him and then turns her attention back to her book. Hotch turns around and is just about to leave the living room when Emily says, "When you have convinced Becky that she has to go to bed now, then tell her to come and say goodnight to me."

"Will do," Hotch says with a grin. He knows it will not be easy, so he takes his time putting on his coat and shoes and walks slowly out the front door and around the house.

In the middle of the lawn Rebecca lays on her back looking up at the night sky where millions of stars are visible tonight. The grass is a bit wet, but Rebecca have been smart enough to lay a blanket on the ground to lay on, so she will not get cold or wet. She is laying completely still and is being so quiet, Hotch gets rather startled when her voice fills the dark garden. "Hi dad."

"How did you know it was me?" he asks as he sits down on the blanket besides her.

She rolls on her side and turns her head towards him. "I'm psychic. Didn't you know that?" Hotch looks skeptical down at her. Rebecca laughs. "It's your night to put me to bed."

"That it is," Hotch says and lays down next to her.

"Don't I need to go to bed now?" Rebecca asks, confused by very her father is laying down instead trying to get her to get up.

"It can wait a little," he says, looking from her and at the night sky. "Have I told you what I wanted to call you?"

"What you wanted to call me? I don't understand." She rolls onto her back again and looks up.

"Name you, I mean."

"Oh, no. I have always thought you and mom agree on calling me Rebecca."

"We did, but it actually wasn't my first choose."

"What was, then?"

"Andromeda."

"Andromeda? That's a kind of weird name."

"That was what your mom said too," Hotch says with a laugh.

"What's so special about the name Andromeda that you what to call me that?"

"Well to explain that, I have to tell you the legend about Andromeda, daughter of Queen Cassiopeia and King Cepheus of Ethiopia."

"Are they from the Greek mythology?"

"Smart girl," he says, patting her on her arm. "They are from the Greek mythology. Do you know about them?"

"Not them, but we have talked about some of the Gods in school."

"Then let me tell you the story," Hotch says and smiles when Rebecca moves over, so she is laying with her head on his chest. "Here we go:_ Long ago, in the land of Ethiopia, there reigned a King Cepheus, and his Queen Cassiopeia. They had a daughter, the Princess Andromeda, who was exceedingly beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that her mother, the Queen, couldn't help but be proud, as any mother would, and even occasionally boast a little about it. On one occasion, she went so far as to claim that her daughter was even more beautiful than the nymphs of the sea._

_But the Queen had forgotten how jealous and spiteful nymphs were. When they heard of the Queen's words, they immediately went to their master, Neptune, lord of the sea, crying out for revenge. The great god Neptune, although second in power and authority only to Jupiter himself, could never say no to his nymphs. Their powers to convince men – gods or mortals, were impossible to resist._

_So Neptune sent the sea monster Cetus to take revenge on the boastful Queen and the lands she governed. Cetus destroyed the shores of Ethiopia, spreading death and destruction along the entire coastline of the kingdom. The desperate King Cepheus talked to an oracle, and was told that the only way to stop the monster was to deliver up his precious daughter, Andromeda, for Cetus to devour._

_So, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, in order to save their kingdom, were forced to make the ultimate sacrifice, and give up their daughter to the horrors of the beast. Andromeda was chained to the rocks by the sea, and left for Cetus. Before long the monster was seen in the distance, looming larger and larger, heading straight for the innocent young girl, naked and helpless on the rock._

_The monster slowly approached the young Andromeda, crying and squirming frantically against her bonds. He opened his massive mouth, lined with dagger-like teeth, and moved towards her, when suddenly a figure came diving out of the sky, swooping in between the monster and its prey. It was the hero Perseus! Mounted on the great winged horse, Pegasus, he was returning from a battle with the evil Medusa, when he heard Andromeda's cries. He pulled Medusa's severed head out of his satchel, a head so hideous that all who looked at it were instantly turned to stone. When the sea monster saw the head covered with writhing snakes, it too turned to stone._

_When Perseus turned around and saw the beautiful Andromeda, he immediately fell in love with her, and carried her off to be his bride. Needless to say, the joy and celebration in the kingdom of Ethiopia knew no end, and the figures from the Andromeda story were placed in the sky, as an eternal reminder of the dangers of mortal arrogance."_

Hotch lifts his left hand and points to the sky. "And there is the Andromeda constellation"

Rebecca lifts her head a little. "I can't really see it, dad."

"It's right there, shaped like a 'V'."

"Oh, yeah." Rebecca lays back down and is quiet for a moment. Then she says, "I wish you had named me Andromeda instead of Rebecca, even though it's kind of weird. But you could just have called me Anna or something like that."

"Why do you wish that?"

"Because Rebecca is so normal. On like Andromeda and it doesn't have an amazing back ground story to it. It's boring."

"That's not true."

"It's not?" Rebecca asks hopefully.

"No. 'Rebecca' is actually the name one of your mother's favorite books. When she found out she was pregnant with you she was in the middle of reading it. That's a little cool, isn't it?"

"It is, but not as cool as the story behind the name Andromeda."

Hotch laughs and sits up. "Come on Becky, it's time for bed now."

They both get up and Rebecca folds the blanket a few times, before hanging it over her right arm and slowly sliding her left hand into her father's much bigger one. "Who wrote that book, dad?"

"A woman named Daphne Du Maurier."

"Maybe I'll read it."

Hotch squeezes her hand and smiles down at her. "I'm sure your mom will let you borrow her copy of the book."


End file.
